Program Reviews

I had the wonderful opportunity to live with a great host family and attend classes at the Uni with spectacular professors. The city of Alicante is very much alive and there is a beautiful beach, castle, plazas, as well as awesome shops and eateries that are in walking distance from any host home. In addition to all of the great local entertainment, it is very easy to travel from Alicante to other locations via the metro, trains, buses, and from the airport. The program included organized trips to cool places such as Granada and Valencia, and inexpensive additional trips to national parks, to go scuba diving, and to see Las Fallas, among other things. The CC-CS' awesome coordinators really make you feel welcome and at home; they make it easy to get involved on campus and in the community, as well as keep you safe while traveling. The classes are layered for different levels of language and integration, and include fun electives like Flamenco and gastronomia (for those who like to cook and eat high quality, culturally relevant foods and travel to where the best stuff is harvested, prepared, and consumed). I absolutely loved my experience, and would recommend it to anyone who wants to improve their Spanish, travel, meet marvelous folk, eat super fresh foods, learn about the Spanish culture and history (among other cultures), and truly have a blast!

This was literally an unforgettable experience. I met a lot of friendly people from the same programs. I met a lot of local spanish people. The teachers were so helpful and encouraging.I WOULD RETURN!

Spending a semester in Seville became much more than academics. I was able to live like the locals and enjoy the famous annual Feria de Abril. This is an event that I could not fully understand until I actually experienced it. It was a lot of fun and I loved the fact that almost all of the women wore flamenco dresses.

Overall this program is very good with plenty of experience and people to help both in the USA and Seville. The office/school is centrally located, making it ideal for exploring an old, historically important city. Very good points include the school itself, the homestay, and cultural activities including travel. The professors are all native speakers from Spain and very dedicated to their work there. It's very important that you meet them halfway; you must understand that you're here to STUDY abroad and they'll help you as much as they can, but if you're not willing to try, why bother? They'll pick up on your attitude and you'll leave Seville without learning a thing if you don't care. Homework was substantially less than I was used to (this could be positive or negative, haha). The homestays are handled very carefully and I have yet to hear of anyone (again who actually TRIED to communicate and spend time with their family) having big problems. Me and my roommate will be in touch with our family for years to come, they are absolutely wonderful people. This leads to cultural stuff too, because your family can introduce you to great things in the city like art and restaurants. I cannot stress enough that if you want a truly rewarding learning experience you must live with a host family and at least ATTEMPT to communicate and spend time with them. You will be amazed at how much you'll learn! CC-CS provides numerous opportunities to see the city, from the mandatory trip to the Cathedral to the optional trips to various museums. Furthermore trips to places like Granada and Córdoba can be very informative and exciting. Travel in general is something that a lot of people look forward to doing while they live abroad, and CC-CS can help with that too from their personal travel agent to program-only trips to places like Morocco and Portugal (I highly recommend both of these!) so you can see the world and hang out with your program friends.
The administration itself needs lots of help being more communicative. We were not given our class schedules nor a firm schedule of events for the semester until we arrived in Seville. Meaning that any attempt to reserve hotels/flights for visiting family members or for your personal travel had to wait until practically the last minute... and anyone who knows anything about travel knows that reservations should be made as far in advance as possible to get good deals, that means this is a HUGE problem for the program overall because it ends up costing students and their families a lot of money over time. Furthermore communication about obligatory meetings, etc. would be very last minute ("Tomorrow is the meeting with X" oh really well I wish I had known that two days ago...) which can be difficult for students and host families alike. Miscommunication galore made for lots of problems.

My time in Sevilla was one of personal growth, relaxation, and friendship. The people are kind and the professors are excellent. Sevilla is a beautiful city which fosters community because there are many places to meet up with friends, and the city is structured for walking or riding a bike (Sevilla has a cheap bike rental which I highly recommend).

The program took us on many trips to see important and interesting parts of the city as well as to different prominent cities around Andalucia (some were free, some with a fee). I hear the housing is hit-and-miss, but I had an awesome host family who I miss very much and plan to see again.

If you go in the Spring, you will get to be there during Semana Santa (Holy Week before Easter Sunday) and the Feria (April Fair, a week long of flamenco dancing and partying - I recommend taking the dance class offered by the program so you can have more fun dancing with people during the Feria!). Two thumbs up!

Everyone dreams about their study abroad experience. You picture it a certain way--envisioning it as the best time of your life, traveling the world, immersing yourself in a new culture and making BFFs. While this little five or six month nugget of your college experience really will fulfill these cliche-d visions, it is a lot more than that. It will challenge you in realizing what you are actually capable of. You will feel awkward, lonely, bold, exhausted and giddy. You will see incredible landscapes that honestly feel like you are stepping into a fairy-tale, contrasted with difficult images of poverty and political corruption that are genuine daily struggles for many of the people you meet, especially in Argentina. But if you are interested in Spanish, if you feel ready to be pushed, if you care about having honest conversations about cultural differences and if you feel a spark to just GO and DO, then you should. Cordoba is small enough where the lack of English speakers will force you to learn Spanish (and speak it), but big enough where you will never be bored.
The Spanish Studies Abroad program is not the most rigorous course load, so if you are looking to be pushed academically, this program may not be for you. However, if you want a good balance of taking classes, traveling, and getting involved in other ways, then this program offers that balance. Your experience is definitely up to your efforts, though. Spanish Studies Abroad will introduce you to a "speaking partner" to practice your Spanish and give you a friend, but it will be up to you to continue this relationship. They will provide awesome professors to teach your classes, but you will choose to listen and gain knowledge from them. You will have to choose to go exploring, initiate conversation with your host family, ask a taxi driver what he thinks about the United States, visit a memorial site of the last military dictatorship in Argentina, or share a choripan with the screaming soccer fan at the Belgrano stadium. All of these things will be up to your doing, but are honestly worth it. My time in Cordoba and with Spanish Studies Abroad was wonderful. Sure, the program has room for improvement like most do, but Cordoba is a great location for Spanish immersion and Argentina offers beautiful people and diversity and fun that deeply impacted me and can do the same for you.

Córdoba is a city in movement. There's always something going on, yet it doesn't have the hectic and caotic feel like Buenos Aires. Córdoba's big, but it takes you in, it's homey. I couldn't have asked for a better study abroad experience.

For me, the best part about travelling with Spanish Studies Abroad was that they give you a very solid base to start off from, but allow you to make your experience what you want it to be. They set everyone up with a family and are very willing to work with you to make sure you're comfortable. Apart from that, the Speaking Partners program sets every student up with an Argentine partner to give you a kickstart into integrating yourself into Argentine culture. This is the base that they give you, but after that it's up to you to decide what to do with your experience, how far to immerse yourself, whether to focus on just Spanish studies with the other international students, leaving you with plenty of time to explore other parts of the culture, or to challenge yourself further by taking a class or two at the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba with other Argentine students, which is definitely harder, but gives you a truer experience in the life of an actual Argentine student.
With this program, they make sure you're taken care of, so that you can enjoy to the max the warm people, the "buena onda", and everything else that Córdoba has to offer.

I was placed in magnificent host home and surrounded by lovely neighbors. My classes pushed me to excel in my spanish and using it day to day greatly improved my overall understanding of the language. I would recommend 2 months abroad to anyone striving to truly learn and understand another language.

I studied abroad in Spain with little Spanish speaking abilities. The course work during the J-term was pivotal for my academic foundation. For that first month of classes, I was privileged to have a grammer class with only one other student and the professor. It was the one-on-one attention that was necessary for me to grasp Spanish (even if just a little bit). The rest of the semester provided equally as wonderful. The classes were challenging but professors were always willing to help you along the way. My host family became my family there. My host mom would patiently sit with me every night as I practiced presentations, studied for tests, and wrote compositions. I have remained incredibly close to the family visiting them after I graduated college and hosting one of the daughters on two different occasions at my house in the States. The program's design was just what I needed to learn Spanish and come home conversational. The relationships I built with my host family are lifelong relationships. It was an incredible program.

The community in Cordoba is a great place to be and offers a ton of opportunities. I learned to dance and really had to practice speaking in Spanish due to a smaller proportion of the locals speaking English compared to in Buenos Aires. The food is wonderful, and the location is great for traveling all around the country and even the continent. The support staff is great in the US, but drops off a little bit once you reach the country. Most families are wonderful, but I happened to have bad luck, that being said, I would go back and do the whole thing again in a heart beat.